The Degregarion of Fallout has nothing to do with FPS

C

Charwo

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Now, the utter shittiness of Fallout 4 has gotten me interested in game design over the last four years. Why the fuck do I hate this game so much? Unlike most of you I didn't hate the main quest, I hated everything around it, but this question goes around what I consider everything around it, so this goes to all of the Fallouts except 1.

Recently I played Fallout 4 with the Depravity mod by Thuggysmurf, which allows a MUCH different first half of the game, a MUCH better narrative and eventually my game crapped for some reason, probably switching out mods, and I felt sick afterward, and I realized that there is a VAST difference between game narrative and the actual game, to the point that I think I'll have to watch Thuggysmurf's other mods via let's plays because Fallout 4's gameplay mechanics are actually poisonous to my soul, no matter how much Thuggy's mods salvage out a decent narrative fundamentally chained to a terrible map.

So is this terrible mechanic the improved FPS mechanics? FUCK NO!

Fallout 4 is a mechanically committed celebration of ugliness and garbage. You are not a General or a leader, a parent, you are an errand boy sifting through TRASH, using TRASH to build TRASH, that listless TRASH PEOPLE will live in listlessly do stuff for you and give you more TRASH. There is no loot in this game. Diablo has loot, Borderlands has loot, shiny crap that makes you go "IT"S SO PRETTY AND SHINY" New Vegas has Loot, Fallout 3 and 4 have vendor trash.

Fundamentally I Loathe Fallout 4 because Fallout 4 goes out of its way to LIE to me about it's every premise and the settlement system interface is the WORST designed thing I've ever seen for it's purpose. They should have had every settlement work like Helgen reborn and/or Heathfire.

The real problem with Fallout has been it's shitty worldbuilding, and that started with Chris Avelone and the Fallout Bible. If Ulysses and Lonesome Road didn't convince you Avellone is a hack who can only sound deep in settings with no real-world history or religion, I don't know what to tell you.

I will tell you why all modern games suck
Because the corporate mentality is that a game setting is playground for manchildren no matter how grim the setting or serious the character. And Bethesda is the worst in the fuck off do anything you like sandbox open-world shit. And Aveloone was facilitating this in wanting to nuke the NCR and go back to the Fallout 1 status quo.

Fallout is not about the status quo. Avellone's 120 years of cultural stasis failed to understand this from the beginning. Fallout is about change.

The Wasteland is not a playground for the player. The Wasteland is the ENEMY. Every raider, every bandit, mutant creature, every Encalve dickbag, every supermutant with a minigun with more bullets than braincells is spiritually a manifestation of the malevolent wasteland. The goal of every Fallout story is to kick the Wasteland in the balls and beat it back that much more.

Fallout is not about reveling in the past, but making a new future, maybe based on the past, but a future wary of past mistakes.

In Fallout, you are not the only actor in the wasteland, and you're not usually the only hero either.

The degradation of Fallout has nothing to do with first person, Bethesda would be lazy and worthless in isometric. Their adventures are Mary Sue machines, the world and plot bends around the player character, that why you can join ALL the factions in Oblivion and Skyrim and you're the soul-eating Dragonborn in Skyrim you're the only human being with agency in Fallout 4, and everyone's bi for you.

They want to make a world that is evocative as possible in the shallowest way possible so they make as much money as possible without thought or controversy. It's like Jim Sterling said about NFTs the other day, games are not about art anymore and have not been for some time, they are consumables, and they are solely investments to make money.

You don't get much more soulless and Todd and Emil, they're the JJ Abrams of Game making. And I wonder how much soul Fallout has DESPITE it's creators, not because of them.
 
Maybe not, but do note that Fallout was conceived with top down, isometric (cavalier oblique), turn-based combat gameplay in mind. Changing from that format to real time-FPS WILL inevitably changes something from the fundamentals. So while New Vegas is still pretty good, it's still nowhere near the height of RPG mechanics that the classic Fallouts has managed to achieve.
Charwo said:
The real problem with Fallout has been it's shitty worldbuilding, and that started with Chris Avelone and the Fallout Bible. If Ulysses and Lonesome Road didn't convince you Avellone is a hack who can only sound deep in settings with no real-world history or religion, I don't know what to tell you.
Click to expand...
Okay, this paragraph in particular is such a mess. For starters, you're implying the setting built by Tim Cain and co are ((((((shitty))))))) from the start. Now, MCA isn't the sole authority of the Fallout setting and worldbuilding, and afaik he made it clear that the Fallout Bible has inconsistencies in it (like with the Jet) and he addressed pretty much all the problems that occurred with its birth.
And if Ulysses and Lonesome Road alone are enough to convince you that he's a 'hack', then what about Dead Money and Old World Blues? What about fucking Planescape: Torment? Sure, I disagree with his notion that Fallout's setting has become 'too developed', that it needs to wipe the slate clean and push the reset button, but unlike most game developers out there, he actually relented and put "his option" as, well, just an option, and not an actual canon.

Maybe MCA has (had?) problems, but being a hack isn't one of them.
 
Black Angel said:
Maybe not, but do note that Fallout was conceived with top down, isometric (cavalier oblique), turn-based combat gameplay in mind. Changing from that format to real time-FPS WILL inevitably changes something from the fundamentals. So while New Vegas is still pretty good, it's still nowhere near the height of RPG mechanics that the classic Fallouts has managed to achieve.

Okay, this paragraph in particular is such a mess. For starters, you're implying the setting built by Tim Cain and co are ((((((shitty))))))) from the start. Now, MCA isn't the sole authority of the Fallout setting and worldbuilding, and afaik he made it clear that the Fallout Bible has inconsistencies in it (like with the Jet) and he addressed pretty much all the problems that occurred with its birth.
And if Ulysses and Lonesome Road alone are enough to convince you that he's a 'hack', then what about Dead Money and Old World Blues? What about fucking Planescape: Torment? Sure, I disagree with his notion that Fallout's setting has become 'too developed', that it needs to wipe the slate clean and push the reset button, but unlike most game developers out there, he actually relented and put "his option" as, well, just an option, and not an actual canon.

Maybe MCA has (had?) problems, but being a hack isn't one of them.
Click to expand...

Avellone had nothing to do with Fallout 1, and Fallout 2, while a great game in it's own right, is while the franchise was mortally wounded specifically because of the ideas of the Fallout bible. The worst idea actually in Fallout 2 explicitly was the Vault experiments, and if they had left the Encalve "President" was simply lying about the purpose of the Vaults and left it at that, all would be well. But in Fallout 3 and 4 nearly every stupid and cringe idea Bethesad'a implemented in their lore has come out of the Fallout Bible, which was not a part of Fallout 1.

As to Planescape never played it, because I despise D&D, and I don't respect the game or any of it's settings. But I do love Star Wars, and Kreia would be a wonderful examination of the dangers of philosophy without transcendent religion if Avellone were that wise or smart, but he's fucking not, and the concept of Darth Nihilus as the world eating monstrosity is...just really bad on many many levels. I tend towards the making force users into superheroes was a really bad thing and keeping Star Wars grounded as per the OT but KOTR II is REALLY bad at this.

But the worst part is that you know that hard science checks you can give the ghoul; a scientist in Vault 22 to take her self-righteous 'we must destroy the research!' attitude and shove it up her ass cause she doesn't understand people will just repeat this bullshit otherwise? With Avellone, there's not enough honesty or humility to bend the philosophy or historical record back on Kreia and Big U to tell them to go fuck themselves on their own terms the same way. It's not so bad given my preferred Courier but if I was playing her sister, a former history teacher she would tear Big U to pieces and give him a college-level education of why his thesis of history is wrong on every single possible level. And I personally REALLY hate him for his treatment and revulsion towards the White Legs; they didn't understand the code of the braids but they braided their hair to honor HIM, because he was their SAVOIR, and he could only see them with disgust, and not their appreciation and deference.

And as for Dead Money, I make it a Goddamn ideological point to take all the gold with my Courier. Not to be rich; but because in the struggle to rebuild society, every resource must be recaptured and utilized for the rebuilding of civilization. IN my own headcanon, it's the NCR who finally crack the Big MT with special forces troops, they secure the facilities, rescue the heavily traumatized residents of little Yangtze and arrange the transport of actual Chinese residents back to what's left of China if they desire or Shi part of San Fransisco and put the Big 5 on trial Numberberg style for unspeakable crimes against humanity. Mobius might get Paperclipped for containing them.

So I reject the theme of one and wish there was a better ending for the other
 
Charwo said:
Now, the utter shittiness of Fallout 4 has gotten me interested in game design over the last four years. Why the fuck do I hate this game so much? Unlike most of you I didn't hate the main quest, I hated everything around it, but this question goes around what I consider everything around it, so this goes to all of the Fallouts except 1.

Recently I played Fallout 4 with the Depravity mod by Thuggysmurf, which allows a MUCH different first half of the game, a MUCH better narrative and eventually my game crapped for some reason, probably switching out mods, and I felt sick afterward, and I realized that there is a VAST difference between game narrative and the actual game, to the point that I think I'll have to watch Thuggysmurf's other mods via let's plays because Fallout 4's gameplay mechanics are actually poisonous to my soul, no matter how much Thuggy's mods salvage out a decent narrative fundamentally chained to a terrible map.

So is this terrible mechanic the improved FPS mechanics? FUCK NO!

Fallout 4 is a mechanically committed celebration of ugliness and garbage. You are not a General or a leader, a parent, you are an errand boy sifting through TRASH, using TRASH to build TRASH, that listless TRASH PEOPLE will live in listlessly do stuff for you and give you more TRASH. There is no loot in this game. Diablo has loot, Borderlands has loot, shiny crap that makes you go "IT"S SO PRETTY AND SHINY" New Vegas has Loot, Fallout 3 and 4 have vendor trash.

Fundamentally I Loathe Fallout 4 because Fallout 4 goes out of its way to LIE to me about it's every premise and the settlement system interface is the WORST designed thing I've ever seen for it's purpose. They should have had every settlement work like Helgen reborn and/or Heathfire.

The real problem with Fallout has been it's shitty worldbuilding, and that started with Chris Avelone and the Fallout Bible. If Ulysses and Lonesome Road didn't convince you Avellone is a hack who can only sound deep in settings with no real-world history or religion, I don't know what to tell you.

I will tell you why all modern games suck
Because the corporate mentality is that a game setting is playground for manchildren no matter how grim the setting or serious the character. And Bethesda is the worst in the fuck off do anything you like sandbox open-world shit. And Aveloone was facilitating this in wanting to nuke the NCR and go back to the Fallout 1 status quo.

Fallout is not about the status quo. Avellone's 120 years of cultural stasis failed to understand this from the beginning. Fallout is about change.

The Wasteland is not a playground for the player. The Wasteland is the ENEMY. Every raider, every bandit, mutant creature, every Encalve dickbag, every supermutant with a minigun with more bullets than braincells is spiritually a manifestation of the malevolent wasteland. The goal of every Fallout story is to kick the Wasteland in the balls and beat it back that much more.

Fallout is not about reveling in the past, but making a new future, maybe based on the past, but a future wary of past mistakes.

In Fallout, you are not the only actor in the wasteland, and you're not usually the only hero either.

The degradation of Fallout has nothing to do with first person, Bethesda would be lazy and worthless in isometric. Their adventures are Mary Sue machines, the world and plot bends around the player character, that why you can join ALL the factions in Oblivion and Skyrim and you're the soul-eating Dragonborn in Skyrim you're the only human being with agency in Fallout 4, and everyone's bi for you.

They want to make a world that is evocative as possible in the shallowest way possible so they make as much money as possible without thought or controversy. It's like Jim Sterling said about NFTs the other day, games are not about art anymore and have not been for some time, they are consumables, and they are solely investments to make money.

You don't get much more soulless and Todd and Emil, they're the JJ Abrams of Game making. And I wonder how much soul Fallout has DESPITE it's creators, not because of them.
Click to expand...
The main issue with modern games is they take everything with a grain of salt. War is fun, colorful, and romanticized. Most importantly, it is SAFE. Heaven forbid they put a SWASTIKA in a WORLD WAR 2 game.

One of the best games in the history of gaming was old Call of Duty World At War. It is one of two cod titles I recommend just for the singleplayer campaign. This game was brutal and dark. Colors were desaturated. Heavy metal helllike soundtrack was present with haunting choir. The enemies had sophisticated death animations as well.

It nailed the apocalyptic atmosphere better than OG Fallout ever did. The best post apocalyptic atmosphere in any game would be dead money.

Modern shite like Far Cry 5 feels like a nursery daycare:
"Cant have realistic death animations and screaming. Cant have blood or swastika in it or else Germany will fucking cry and we need to target the 5 year old population there anyway..."

And so I heartily agree with you that gaming has largely been neutered. Even games that WERE NOT supposed to be serious, like Team Fortress 2, still were not afraid to make fun at black stereotypes and other stuff that pansies today would hate.

New Tomb Raider games are the same way. The SAFE moments stick out like a sore thumb. Absence of gory wounds or blood is noticable.

So I am building an old Pentium 3 for DOS and windows gaming since I am running out of good 2000's titles to play.

Its really a shame, gaming wasnt always like this.
 
Charwo said:
Avellone had nothing to do with Fallout 1, and Fallout 2, while a great game in it's own right, is while the franchise was mortally wounded specifically because of the ideas of the Fallout bible. The worst idea actually in Fallout 2 explicitly was the Vault experiments, and if they had left the Encalve "President" was simply lying about the purpose of the Vaults and left it at that, all would be well. But in Fallout 3 and 4 nearly every stupid and cringe idea Bethesad'a implemented in their lore has come out of the Fallout Bible, which was not a part of Fallout 1.
Click to expand...
I totally agree! I've never liked the idea of the vaults being experiments. I much prefer their role in Fallout 1 and how they are about restarting society after the apocalypse. Sure a few of them could have been used for twisted purposes by the government, as a reference to the Cube in the movie the Cube. However not all of them.

A nice rant you had there! If you clean it up some and make your points clear with examples to go a long we could post it on our front page.

If you feel inclined you could start a thread here that introduces us to the Thuggyverse by Thuggysmurf. I hadn't heard about it before.

e: Oh I see it's here.

e2: @JustAShcookius I think you nailed it in regards to modern games.
 
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Reminder that the Vault Experiments as a concept were coined by Tim Cain.

I actually like the concept, althrough I think it kinda retro-taints the whole intention of V13 and the ending of FO1. But it's more of a fan-opinion than real canon.
That said, I don't think the experiments actually matter much in the context of Vault 13, everything involving it happens for pretty reasonable reasons. Vault 3 in FNV pretty much shows what would have happened had Vault 13 opened during FO1.

I think it's also worth noting Tim Cain also created the Enclave, and the whole concept of the Vault Experiments doesn't make as much sense without the Enclave around. If there's an experiment, who will get the results? The Enclave. Who would be malicious enough to create the experiments? The Enclave*. Why would the Enclave run those experiments? Because the US Govt already wrote off the common man and believed they (The Elite) were the only ones capable of surviving Nuclear War.

I think the experiments were also a way to make each Vault different and more original. I also think it's worth noting that the original Black Isle experiments were more sociological experiments, rather than dumbfuckery like "FEV vault lol" and other newer vaults that are pretty much primed to end with "And then everyone died horribly."

*althrough one curious thing is that Bethesda games have been showing Vault Tec as being a pretty bad corp. I heard a theory somewhere that Vault Tec is being foreshadowed as a future antagonist. Which honestly, would be kinda smart from Bethesda.
 
"FEV vault lol"
Click to expand...
I have known for some time that the existence of the FEV Vault (vault 87?) was Bethesda dumbshittery, but I have never heard it summed up so eloquently and bluntly. Thanks for the humor.
 
Charwo said:
Now, the utter shittiness of Fallout 4 has gotten me interested in game design over the last four years. Why the fuck do I hate this game so much? Unlike most of you I didn't hate the main quest, I hated everything around it, but this question goes around what I consider everything around it, so this goes to all of the Fallouts except 1.

Recently I played Fallout 4 with the Depravity mod by Thuggysmurf, which allows a MUCH different first half of the game, a MUCH better narrative and eventually my game crapped for some reason, probably switching out mods, and I felt sick afterward, and I realized that there is a VAST difference between game narrative and the actual game, to the point that I think I'll have to watch Thuggysmurf's other mods via let's plays because Fallout 4's gameplay mechanics are actually poisonous to my soul, no matter how much Thuggy's mods salvage out a decent narrative fundamentally chained to a terrible map.

So is this terrible mechanic the improved FPS mechanics? FUCK NO!

Fallout 4 is a mechanically committed celebration of ugliness and garbage. You are not a General or a leader, a parent, you are an errand boy sifting through TRASH, using TRASH to build TRASH, that listless TRASH PEOPLE will live in listlessly do stuff for you and give you more TRASH. There is no loot in this game. Diablo has loot, Borderlands has loot, shiny crap that makes you go "IT"S SO PRETTY AND SHINY" New Vegas has Loot, Fallout 3 and 4 have vendor trash.

Fundamentally I Loathe Fallout 4 because Fallout 4 goes out of its way to LIE to me about it's every premise and the settlement system interface is the WORST designed thing I've ever seen for it's purpose. They should have had every settlement work like Helgen reborn and/or Heathfire.

The real problem with Fallout has been it's shitty worldbuilding, and that started with Chris Avelone and the Fallout Bible. If Ulysses and Lonesome Road didn't convince you Avellone is a hack who can only sound deep in settings with no real-world history or religion, I don't know what to tell you.

I will tell you why all modern games suck
Because the corporate mentality is that a game setting is playground for manchildren no matter how grim the setting or serious the character. And Bethesda is the worst in the fuck off do anything you like sandbox open-world shit. And Aveloone was facilitating this in wanting to nuke the NCR and go back to the Fallout 1 status quo.

Fallout is not about the status quo. Avellone's 120 years of cultural stasis failed to understand this from the beginning. Fallout is about change.

The Wasteland is not a playground for the player. The Wasteland is the ENEMY. Every raider, every bandit, mutant creature, every Encalve dickbag, every supermutant with a minigun with more bullets than braincells is spiritually a manifestation of the malevolent wasteland. The goal of every Fallout story is to kick the Wasteland in the balls and beat it back that much more.

Fallout is not about reveling in the past, but making a new future, maybe based on the past, but a future wary of past mistakes.

In Fallout, you are not the only actor in the wasteland, and you're not usually the only hero either.

The degradation of Fallout has nothing to do with first person, Bethesda would be lazy and worthless in isometric. Their adventures are Mary Sue machines, the world and plot bends around the player character, that why you can join ALL the factions in Oblivion and Skyrim and you're the soul-eating Dragonborn in Skyrim you're the only human being with agency in Fallout 4, and everyone's bi for you.

They want to make a world that is evocative as possible in the shallowest way possible so they make as much money as possible without thought or controversy. It's like Jim Sterling said about NFTs the other day, games are not about art anymore and have not been for some time, they are consumables, and they are solely investments to make money.

You don't get much more soulless and Todd and Emil, they're the JJ Abrams of Game making. And I wonder how much soul Fallout has DESPITE it's creators, not because of them.
Click to expand...

Yeppp. I remember I the marketing for 4 or whatever, Howard was like, Fallout is a game where you can do anything and everything.

And I was like...what? Since when? What are the consequences for doing everything? What about the agency of the wastes, marching on. Players should influence, of course. I'm not for a dreary unending uncaring wasteland. But they're the little agent on the side, tipping things. They're not the President, Emperor, Warlord, Mayor, General. They take orders, or follow a goal. They're the Spy, the Merc, the drifting gun, the scientist who knows what to do and when.... That difference is key. Because now, everything has to be for the titled hero to bend over.

In 2, no one really gave a damn that you were the 'Chosen One' other than your tribe, and barely them. Next town over, you're just some hick tribal. Even when you get to Tandi and talk to her, you're just some dude fighting back against the wastes: one of many. Admirable, notable, but the NCR is still going to chug along and Tandi has to run a whole country. Goodbye now, she has to sign some executive orders about water and talk to senators and her cabinet about the Enclave threat that her forces are also fighting and raiders and expansion up North....

At most she should give you some support, but, damn; if 2 was made today, she would be liable to bend over for you and resign and give you the reins..... That's the issue. On top of uncreative reuse of factions and plots....
 
JustAShcookius said:
I have known for some time that the existence of the FEV Vault (vault 87?) was Bethesda dumbshittery, but I have never heard it summed up so eloquently and bluntly. Thanks for the humor.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I am always glad to make people a little more happy.

Funny thing is, there was already space for FEV outside California since the Vault 13 Timeline, with talk of "Quarantine Towns" where FEV was being tested on people. Fallout 76 actually did it right.
 
Slaughter Manslaught said:
Funny thing is, there was already space for FEV outside California since the Vault 13 Timeline, with talk of "Quarantine Towns" where FEV was being tested on people. Fallout 76 actually did it right.
Click to expand...
Of course, Fallout 76 took that point and simplified it to absurdity. From what I remember of the Quarantine Towns, the FEV was not turning its subjects into “Super Mutants” but rather doing weird things like making them feel sick and having a tentacle grow out of their stomachs, creepy shit like that. In 76, West-Tek is literally setting out to make “Super Mutants” (they say so in terminal entries), a name for a creature that shouldn’t exist for another 30 or 40 years.
 
Noob question. Is the concept of "control vaults" mentioned in the games? It's being used frequently on Fallout wiki.
 
Iprovidelittlepianos said:
I recall it being mentioned regarding Vault 8 once the Vault Experiments are revealed, but that might be just from the Restoration Patch
Click to expand...

Proletären said:
Noob question. Is the concept of "control vaults" mentioned in the games? It's being used frequently on Fallout wiki.
Click to expand...

Control Vaults were mentioned in the original release of Fallout 2. The idea being that they were the control experiments in the original concept of the Vaults in Fallout as the Vault-Tec Societal Preservation Programme before they just became excuses for any old thing with Fallout 3 (which has IIRC like 3 Vaults dedicated to super-soldier research).
 
Mr Enclave said:
Control Vaults were mentioned in the original release of Fallout 2.
Click to expand...
This is what I thought too, from trying to muster my memory muscle. The concept of Vault's experiments, while maybe conceived by Tim Cain (apparently), isn't made public until Fallout 2. It seems they didn't show it in Fallout 1 to simulate the Vault Dweller being an individual with no immediate access or even privy to such information, like the Chosen One could.
 
IIRC, the team assumed that Fallout was a one-shot; arguably it should have been. Later they found out there was to be a sequel. Afterwards they put the advert for the G.E.C.K. in the last page of the manual; replacing a blank Notes: page.

My impression is that the experiments aspect is not original to the first game concept, but was part of the second team's extension of the plot.

(I could be wrong, or have just not seen, or read some of the pertinent interviews.)
 
Slaughter Manslaught said:
Reminder that the Vault Experiments as a concept were coined by Tim Cain.

I actually like the concept, althrough I think it kinda retro-taints the whole intention of V13 and the ending of FO1. But it's more of a fan-opinion than real canon.
That said, I don't think the experiments actually matter much in the context of Vault 13, everything involving it happens for pretty reasonable reasons. Vault 3 in FNV pretty much shows what would have happened had Vault 13 opened during FO1.

I think it's also worth noting Tim Cain also created the Enclave, and the whole concept of the Vault Experiments doesn't make as much sense without the Enclave around. If there's an experiment, who will get the results? The Enclave. Who would be malicious enough to create the experiments? The Enclave*. Why would the Enclave run those experiments? Because the US Govt already wrote off the common man and believed they (The Elite) were the only ones capable of surviving Nuclear War.

I think the experiments were also a way to make each Vault different and more original. I also think it's worth noting that the original Black Isle experiments were more sociological experiments, rather than dumbfuckery like "FEV vault lol" and other newer vaults that are pretty much primed to end with "And then everyone died horribly."

*althrough one curious thing is that Bethesda games have been showing Vault Tec as being a pretty bad corp. I heard a theory somewhere that Vault Tec is being foreshadowed as a future antagonist. Which honestly, would be kinda smart from Bethesda.
Click to expand...

OK, I have to respect Tim Cain more than I do Chris Avellone but Tim Cain has woefully bad ideas too. More hit and miss than anything, but between the ghouls are created by radiation (problems are addressed below) but the Enclave does not NEED the Vault experiments to exist, it's only the other way around. And they were a TERRIBLE idea in the first place. Do you know why? Because they could do the same experiments long term on interned Chinese nationals and controllable POWS in retrofitted mine shafts far away from population centers in upper Canada. And you can start the experiments BEFORE the bombs drop. And you don't even need for WWIII to begin in 2066, because thanks to the EC-Arab War that ended in a limited nuclear war there are refugees EVERYWHERE! Can't do this in Canada yet but, but there are plenty of big spacious mineshafts to convert in Alaska. Gulags and hot labs as refugee resettlement centers! WAY LESS BLOWBACK. MUCH SOONER RESULTS!

I should run UNESCO!

Then we get to the stupids of ghouls being made by radiation. Now, as the AU lover I don't have a problem with this IF it is consistent. And what does that mean? Well the first ghouls should have been the Curies. It would have been hilarious if Pierre survived that hit with the wagon cause.....ghouls are surprisingly hard to kill and then a year later his frickin nose falls off. It'd be kinda like Brundlefly: early 20th-century edition with Pierre putting little bits of his face and extremities on a shelf talking about being relics of a bygone age, only instead of getting mercy killed by Geena Davis, he's working at Cern in 2020, possibly with prosthetics to not freak people out so much.

At the very least the POD of the Fallout universe is just beyond 1945 and we KNOW the nukings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened. This means as per Camp Searchlight, there should have been dozens to hundreds of instantly feral ghouls eating people's faces in Japanese cities in August 1945. Ghouls should be a known phenomenon in the 20th century. Even without ferals, you will have distinctly non-feral ghouled Japanese citizens filing lawsuits against the US government for DECADES considering the depth of deformities. And given how long the Japanese live it wouldn't be until....about now people start to figure out that being a ghoul means you are more or less biologically immortal. Now THAT'S interesting worldbuilding.

But that's not how Fallout treated it's ghouls. Frankly between this and the insane explanation of human mutation in the Enclave, I think when people in the Fallout universe talk about a "Prime Normal" they CANNOT be talking about just a non-irradiated human being. Priming, considering the pre war tech probably refers to a template of "junk" DNA to get rid of congenital disease genes like Huntington's and Tray Sacs, and possible things like ADHD and given the 50s thing of Fallout, the gay. ANd FEV was designed around American soldiers being primed in childhood just like the American war machine is designed around soldiers receiving childhood vaccination, mostly against Measles Mumps and Rubella. The inoculation FEV that didn't mutate people phenotropicly but makes them dumb when exposed to regular FEV, did that not because it made everyone a mutant per se, but it destroyed the priming. The Master needed Vault Dwellers not because they were radiation-free, but because they are the last people in California with the medical facilities to prime their children post natal.

The Enclave does this too, and has gone on a MASSIVE psyops to convince it's people normal baseline non primed humanity are in fact mutants because they aren't primed and Priming as a safety measure doesn't affect the germ cells so it can't be inherited if something goes terribly wrong. Richardson tells you this mutant line, knows it's a lie but what's he really going to do, tell the heavily armed tribal in power armor that he wants to kill off all non Enclave people off North America because the important people are tired of dicking around with the little people, the ingrates who were ready to sweep them out once and if the war with China ended in American victory?!

Fuck no you don't do that Snidely Whiplash shit. You get your brains beat out but Mr. Uga Booga wearing your composite power armor that gives his uga booga club swings +4 strength.

And that's not even considering: Why the hell isn't the ENnlave on Hawaii? Why didn't they rally the surviving elements of the US Navy around Pearl, use a bunch of GECKS to terraform, if not Maui, then one of the other islands after the Black Rain? If Robot House can build a Vault full of Securitrons within pissing distance of Hoover Dam, the US Navy can build a Vault in the Aleutian Islands full of maintenance bots for their ships post war. DO I need to elaborate on how useful a nuclear sub could be for exploring a posr war world in complete safety?
 
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